More COVID-19 relief for Minnesota arts organizations; New Native Theatre Play Festival begins

In the words of Torrie Allen, president and CEO of Arts Midwest, “As the pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the nation, smaller arts and culture organizations are deeply hurting.” Because of deep inequities and historic under-resourcing, some are hurting more than others.

And several are being helped by COVID-19 relief grants from the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund. Launched earlier this year with a $10 million emergency grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, led by poet Elizabeth Alexander, the fund is administered by America’s six Regional Arts Organizations including Arts Midwest. The states supported by Arts Midwest are Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.

In July, Arts Midwest split its $1.5 million in Mellon funds among 30 arts organizations, giving each non-matching grants of $50,000 to $55,000. The 30 included 22 BIPOC organizations (led by and serving people of color and/or indigenous communities) and 11 rural organizations (located in and/or serving communities of 50,000 people or fewer). All were organizations with pre-COVID annual budgets between $250,000 and $10 million.

Read full article.